Yoga and Age: Do Yoga Practitioners Get Old?

Sep 5, 2017 | XAging, Age, Key | 11 comments

A photo of Collyn doing a standing yoga pose.

Inquiring into ‘old-hood’

I wanted to explore the question ‘does yoga helps thwart some of the effects of ageing?’. So I asked my octogenarian friend Collyn Rivers* if he would write a guest post on the topic.

Some of you might remember Collyn fondly from his wonderful classes at Sydney Yoga Centre, the school that he co-directed with me.

He and I have been committed to doing strong and dynamic yoga practice for decades. This is not always the direction that those of advanced years want to go. Older people might prefer to kick back and sit out their remaining days. But Collyn is not one of them.

Collyn on yoga and age

A perverse curiosity about advice on yoga for older people is that it is mostly from those far younger. Further, ‘age’ is regarded only chronologically. It overlooks that many an over-80 yogi will do stuff that most 50 year olds can only dream of. However, few over 70 write books about that.

There are exceptions: Vanda Scaravelli wrote ‘Awakening the Spine’ when she was about 83, and uses herself to illustrate advanced poses. BKS Iyengar was still doing his stuff just prior to his death (at 95). There are records of (American) yoga teachers doing handstands when over 100. Mary Stewart’s Yoga over 50 is fine (but 50 is hardly old). Our beloved Eve’s ‘Teach Yourself Yoga’ – includes pix of both of as 50 and 60 year olds – but may however need be updated.

I have never been one for non-thinkingly accepting any status quo – so starting yoga at 52 with Pixie Lillas in Balmain was not an issue. I became an Iyengar-certified teacher when I was 58 and taught for many years with Eve until my late 70s.

My basic approach now is to read the general aging advice. Then do the opposite.

That advice tends to include moving to a single story house. So we bought a three story house with a very steep 50 metre driveway. We (my wife is 20 years younger) may climb those three-story stairs many times a day.

My daily practice from 82 on was initially to build up core strength to beyond that I had previously then work on a basis of use it or lose it. Now at 87 I find I can still do much of what I did when I first started yoga at 52. My strength is far less, but flexibility is still much as in my 60s.

I have wrist issues that prevent handstands but can go up into headstand with straight legs at least 20 times in a row.

I take core building stuff very seriously and do far more repetitions than a 30/40 year old would do. I mostly do 20-30 repeats. This is to provide a reserve, as it were, as I will inevitably lose strength in the future.

Also have a feeling that being a Leo helps no end.

I still primarily use Mr Iyengar’s routines, and attend Jo Longhurst’s excellent Iyengar classes in Mona Vale once a week.

I have an annual medical check – not the least because I was born with some seven major back issues – none of which has given the slightest problem since I started yoga. My blood pressure is about 110 over 70 and resting heart rate of 50-55 beats/minute.

The main reductions are in strength generally – and balance on a soft surface. But, curiously no problem on the hard ones in our home.

Apart from occasionally going upstairs to have a pee, then forgetting what I came up for, my memory is fine. I still work full-time – writing and publishing complex technical books.

I do not for a moment suggest this approach unless one has a long yoga background – but do think long and hard about following advice from those much younger.

Am also encouraged by recent findings that the body may cease aging when one is past 91. The study reported in a 2016 New Scientist by Michael Rose, professor of evolutionary biology, says that if you are lucky enough to live that long, you stop ageing. He notes that one’s health may not improve but it certainly does not get any worse. Whilst that advice is so far not mainstream, population statistics do show that ageing seems to stop at 93 – and does not speed up again until we get a telegram from Queen Elizabeth (the Last) at 100.

Thus, if one makes it to 99, you are no more likely to die at any given point than someone of 93. (From 110 plus may be a different matter but I’ll let you know).

*Collyn Rivers is a certified Iyengar Yoga teacher. Both Collyn and his wife Maarit have been (top) Level 3 Yoga Australia teachers – but have now ceased active teaching. Collyn plans ‘never to retire and to be working as now until at least 100 (currently13 years to go).’ He stays busy in his own business, Caravan and Motorhome Books, as writer and editor.

11 Comments

  1. A wonderfully inspiring post, especially relevent to me as I have just recommenced regular yoga at the age of 54! I also remember Collyn fondly from the yoga centre at Haymarket where I first started doing yoga in my early 20s – after trying to do handstands for a long time, he was the teacher who finally helped to achieve it.

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  2. brilliant post Eve and Collyn – i will share with my friends – you guys are such an inspiration to me and to everyone else i am sure too – much love to you and your families

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  3. Wonderfully inspiring. I started yoga at 55 and am loving the strength and balance I have achieved. Now I’m determined to never stop! Luckily for me, I have never ceased doing headstands and handstands (upside-down being my default position as a child) and so can still do them.

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  4. How inspiring. I am a little tired of people ‘advising’ me that perhaps I’m pushing the boundaries. I was a late starter to regular yoga (my early 60’s) and now do heaps of stuff (pics on ‘Active Life Yoga’ f/b page). Last year aged 67 I started learning hammock yoga and have also resurrected hula hooping. If I listen to the ‘sages’ I should be sitting on the couch sipping green tea for my health! I would do a class with you and with Mr Simon Borg-Olivier – although I fear that we are not geographically friendly.

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  5. Hi, just loved Collyn’s comments on ageing. I have been practising yoga for about 15 years, just a novice really, and when I retired 18 months ago I decided that I would do my yoga teacher training and teach “oldies”. I only do 2 classes a week, one as a volunteer with U3A (University of the third age) where all participants are over 50 and the other a mixed class where my oldest student is 86 (and the most competitive student of them all!) I absolutely love teaching and my ladies are loving having someone that kinda looks like them. And I don’t make them try to do handstands! I hope I can keep teaching for many years. I just get so much joy out of seeing people move and breathe and feel good about themselves. If I make it to 91 I will look forward to not ageing any further?
    Yours in yoga, Ros.

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  6. Go Collyn! Although I am only 58, I too tire of visitors to my farm suggesting I should “take it easy” and hire someone to muck out my paddocks and do the heavy gardening. I usually move several wheelbarrows of manure up and down hills every day, and do regular lifting of weight in the garden, whether that be moving compost, shoveling vegetable beds or planting native trees. One wonders whether these well meaning folk would rather me get in my car, drive 30 minutes to the nearest town, go to the gym to do mindless reps on machines, then drive home (each day), as a way of replacing these natural and purposeful activities. Like you Collyn, I am determined to keep my body strong so that I can enjoy living in my two story house, on hilly land, and of course be able to ride my lovely horses. Right now I’ve added swimming 3-4 kilometers a week to my regimen. Let’s meet for my 70th, your . . . . ?

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  7. Great stuff Collyn and an example to us all. The right attitude gets one at least half way there – similar to the Japanese cheer leader group of similar ages as most of the respondents to Collyns post. Keep up the good work and we will follow in your foot steps.

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  8. Hi Donna, great to hear from you. I just realised that you are here next month. Would love to meet you, if you have time and energy. I have not booked into your workshops or the IYTA conference still thinking of it.

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  9. Donna
    Would have liked to be with Maarit at your all-women workshop in Spain next year but alas am of a non-appropriate sex.
    Will certainly meet for your 70th as will be only 99!
    Love
    Collyn

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  10. what a great read! And an encouragement to keep going with yoga – if I ever doubted it. Thanks Collyn and Eve!

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  11. Such wonderful yoga practitioners.!
    My respect…Also I practise and teach Yoga. Did my certificate under Martyn Jackson, after I reduced being an acrobatic water skier, and also once a National Dutch Champion..I started practising Yoga in 1968,, when I was pregnant with my first child, and have so far not stopped at the age of 82 years.
    What I love of my children, children-in-law and 7 grandchildren, is, that they also practise either Yoga or Acrobstics.
    I feel so blessed… Yours in Yga..????????‍♀️????????‍♀️????????‍♀️

    Reply

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